


Just What I Needed

by chickenlivesinpumpkin



Series: Songbird [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: BDSM, Caning, Cock Cages, Dehumanization, Edging, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Objectification, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Total Power Exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:33:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26868988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chickenlivesinpumpkin/pseuds/chickenlivesinpumpkin
Summary: He snatches the pack up, fumbles a Marlboro out, lights it with the dinky plastic lighter also on the table, and exhales a plume of gray poison into the air. He finally begins to relax. He’s about four drags in when he remembers.He’s not allowed to smoke.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Songbird [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1960114
Comments: 16
Kudos: 141





	Just What I Needed

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously punishment in BDSM relationships is inherently complicated, as anything unpleasant enough to inhibit behavior is going to automatically raise questions about consent and agency. It's just the nature of the thing. One of the benefits of sleeping with the same person for the length of a world war or two is that you have a pretty good sense of what's going on in their heads. But if the idea of implicit or off-page negotiation regarding corporal punishment is gonna bug you, this isn't the fic for you.
> 
> Title from the song by The Cars.

Bucky’s first thought upon waking is supposed to be Steve’s cock, but this morning he wakes up thinking of death.

His gasps are choked, muffled things, which is the only reason he hasn’t woken Steve. He guesses it’s around three or four in the morning, since the sky’s still thick with stars beyond the window, the bedroom shadowed and quiet except for Steve’s soft, rumbling breaths. Bucky lays there for a long while, waiting for his heart rate to steady, for his sweat to dry. He thinks, a few times, that the nausea might force him out of bed into the bathroom, but it never quite crosses the line.

Sometimes the dreams are about specific events, but most often, it’s just a haze of countless half-formed memories, all mashed together into a blur of pain and fear and blood. The event dreams are bad enough, as they leave him slow and heavy with guilt, unable to sleep past the racing thoughts, unable to eat because he can’t swallow around the shame lodged in his throat.

He still prefers them to the hazy-memory dreams, though. These dreams are like small, burrowing creatures made of teeth, and they dig into his mind, lodge deep in his cells and neurons, whispering their vicious little lies at the base of his brain where he can’t pry them out. They whisper that this isn’t real, that he’s imagining all of his happinesses, that Steve’s been dead this whole time, that Bucky’s actually still in a HYDRA cell, deluded and drooling. The hazy dreams leave him doubting reality for days, jumping at every noise, testing the walls to see if they’ll hold, fearing that each footstep might be the one that takes him crashing through the floor and back into his old life, where he’ll find the chair coiled around him once more.

It’s that goddamn hell week. Every single time they pause the game to renegotiate, it takes forever for Bucky to reacclimate. He can’t begrudge Steve’s need for it—he needs hell week the way Bucky needs the other weeks, and Bucky’s not such a selfish prick that he’d sacrifice Steve’s peace of mind for his own—but it fucks him up every time. And this is only the first day of the new cycle. Likely he’s still got a ride ahead of him before the dreams and voices and shame and guilt to quieten down and go back to sleep. 

Speaking of sleep, Bucky’s done for the night. He slips out of bed without waking Steve and heads into the living room. He grabs sweatpants out of the dryer and tugs them on and heads for the balcony.

It’s cold out, verging on frigid. The rough stone beneath his bare feet is damp with dew and makes him shiver, but Bucky just wraps his arms around his bare torso and breathes deep. He can almost catch the scent of autumn in the air. After a minute, his head begins to clear. The wind is always brisk this high up in the tower, and it’s hard to think you’re avoiding life by making up a new, perfect reality while your teeth are chattering. Bucky likes to think that if he were delusional, he’d come up with something warmer.

He stares out over the balcony wall, down at the city with its sporadic blazing lights and the occasional distant honk of a horn. New York never sleeps. She’s his most constant companion on the nights when he’s up before the sun. Maybe it’s because he’s a sniper down to the bones; most of the time he loves this vantage point, so high up that all the myriad problems of humanity are invisible. He knows that people down there are suffering, going hungry, maybe, fighting demons both external and internal, but it’s bearable as long as he’s too far away to see it. On nights like tonight, it’s harder to ignore, because he remembers all the ways he’s been there, how it felt to be like them, vulnerable and afraid, and his metal hand curls into a fist at the idea, because he could—maybe he could—the soldier has a strength that could be useful—but he can’t—Bucky can’t.

Steve and Wilson say he doesn’t owe the world anything else, that trying to help when he’s not ready would maybe do more damage to himself and others than it could help. It all sounds good, but Bucky knows the truth that they don’t say, the real reason why he’s hiding up here instead of fighting down there, doing the work that Steve and the other Avengers do.

They can’t trust him anymore than he can trust himself.

He stumbles back, sits in one of the chairs. His cock cage pinches against the crease of his thigh, but he doesn’t shift. He lets the metal dig in, lets the pain erase more of the haze. He reaches down, in fact, and shoves the heel of his hand against the Monster, reminding himself of its existence. The harder he pushes, the meaner it bites into some very vulnerable flesh and he drops his head back, stares up at the wide, glittering sky while he reminds himself that this is him, he is here, in the flesh. His cock belongs to Steve, _he_ belongs to Steve, everything he is belongs to Steve, and he’s never going back. He’ll never do the things he used to do. Steve would never make him, never let him.

The thing that would help best, if he’s honest, is a brutal beating. Nothing puts him squarely in his body like a grotesque amount of pain. It’s difficult to get Steve to the point where he’ll fully indulge Bucky that way, though. Steve enjoys Bucky’s suffering, of course, but he tends to prefer acts that remind both of them that Bucky’s body is his to control and dominate and cherish. He likes having Bucky bent over his knee for a spanking, but he doesn’t get off on using his fists, at least not the way Bucky wishes he did.

If it was still hell week, Bucky might try to find Natasha, get her into the gym for a spar, ask for the kind of fight that would leave them both bloody and barely able to stand by the end. But it’s not hell week, and sparring isn’t part of his normal workouts, and he needs permission to leave the apartment anyway, and Steve’ll want to _talk_ about it if he asks.

He leans forward, presses his face to his knees. He knows he doesn’t have to be afraid of Steve, not the way he used to be afraid of Pierce or Lukin or Zola, but there’s a reason he fucking likes being an object. Objects don’t have to wrangle with this autonomy bullshit. A chair doesn’t have to make up its mind about whether or not to stay put. Bucky rolls his cheek against a bony kneecap. The Monster is cutting off some of the circulation to his dick in this position. He stays put anyway, reminding himself of these details: he has a cock, he has blood flowing in his veins, he has knees and a cheek and skin that can feel the breeze. He is here, he is real, and, as his gaze lights on the pack of smokes lying on the small table to his right, he realizes he is—wow, he is _dying_ for a cigarette.

In the absence of a beat-down, this is the next best thing. He snatches the pack up, fumbles a Marlboro out, lights it with the dinky plastic lighter also on the table, and exhales a plume of gray poison into the air. He finally begins to relax.

He’s about four drags in when he remembers.

He’s not allowed to smoke.

It’s one of Steve’s rules—he thinks it’s gross, always has, because those damn asthma cigarettes would make him throw up back in the day—and Bucky might be able to smoke a couple packs a day during hell week, but it’s not hell week anymore and this is—shit.

He stares at the dim glow of the cherry. Considers putting it out, but doesn’t. Might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb, he figures. He tucks the cigarette back between his lips and tries not to stress about it. Doesn’t quite succeed, but worrying about disappointing Steve is an improvement on wondering if he’s living in a fuckin’ hallucination, so. He’ll take it.

He’s still sitting on the balcony, a few more cigarettes under his belt, when Steve steps outside. He’s tousled-haired, bare-chested, blinking blurrily, apparently perplexed by the violet-pink streaks working their way up from the horizon, and, judging from the turn of his mouth, kind of pissed off about how chilly it is. He wrinkles his nose. “What are you doing, Buck? Bad night?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “Want to sit?”

“It’s like eight degrees out here.”

It’s gotta be almost fifty, but Steve’s dramatic by nature. Bucky smiles at him fondly. “Be in in a minute.”

Steve nods and starts to step back in, still sulky about being awake, when his gaze lands on the cigarette in Bucky’s fingers. He goes still, gaze flashing to the no-longer-empty ashtray before slowly lifting to Bucky’s.

“Yeah, I know,” Bucky says, rueful. “I’ll be in in a minute. Unless you want me in now?”

Steve studies him for a long second. All hints of doziness are gone from him expression. He looks ready instead, the way he used to look before an op back during the war, back when they both still thought a battlefield would be clearly marked at its edges and populated solely by good guys and bad guys. Ready and earnest and blissfully unaware of the possibility of any gray areas.

“Take your minute,” Steve says, and goes back inside.

“Well,” Bucky tells his cigarette. “Might manage to get that beating after all.”

It’s probably fucked up that that cheers him up better than anything else has managed so far this morning.

When he steps inside, Steve’s making coffee. Bucky lingers at the breakfast bar, watches the beautiful muscles in Steve’s bare back work, waiting as patient as only a chair or an asset can.

“Go brush your teeth,” Steve orders quietly without turning around, and so Bucky goes. There’s a heady humming under his skin, anticipation marked with a fair bit of nervousness. It’s kind of pleasant. Or maybe that’s not the word. He likes it, anyway.

When he comes back out, minty fresh, Steve’s on the couch. He’s looking out the balcony doors at the burgeoning dawn. “Sit down.”

Bucky does, right there on the floor at Steve’s feet. His blood pressure probably drops about ten points in that second—being on his knees in front of Steve is his goddamn happy place. It’s the thing he pictures when he’s on the verge of a panic attack.

Steve shifts to face him and strokes a tangled lock of hair out of Bucky’s face. “Nightmare?”

Bucky nods. Tries not to think about it.

“Want to talk about it?”

“Not remotely.”

“Need Dr. Ellison?”

“I need you,” Bucky mutters before he can stop himself.

“Funny way to show it,” Steve says, but he pinks up a little anyway. He’s a sap for sweet words, always has been.

“I wasn’t thinking. I just—I just needed it so I took it.”

“And the second and third cigarettes?”

Bucky squints, rubs a hand sheepishly over the back of his neck. “Yeah…yeah, that’s a little harder to justify, huh?”

“You lookin’ for a punishment, Buck?”

Bucky doesn’t lie to Steve, not ever, so he admits, “Not—not consciously, maybe? I wasn’t trying to disobey when I took the first one. But…after that…yeah, I think so. My skin feels tight all over. Wouldn’t mind a crop or two to help it fit right again.”

“Meanest thing I could do would be to withhold it—”

“No,” he blurts, again without thinking. His breathing’s fast all of a sudden. “No, don’t—please, don’t do that.”

Steve makes a soft sound of consideration. He picks up his coffee mug, blows on it to cool it, then takes a sip. He seems to be thinking. After a while, he says, “Not sure it’ll correct your behavior if that’s how we—”

“Please, Stevie, c’mon—”

“You interrupt me again, and you’re gonna be eating kale for a week.”

Bucky blanches and immediately clamps his mouth closed.

“Better,” Steve murmurs. “Well. Lots to think about. Day one, for one thing. Hard to get back into the habit, I know. Bad night, too. Smoking seems to be a grounding task for you.” He runs his fingers through Bucky’s hair again. “And I can understand that corporal punishment might do the same. And I’ll admit, I do like to get a good session in on the first day back. Remind us both of where we’re standing. Still…you willfully disobeyed the rules and now you’re asking for something. Hmm.”

Bucky wants to fidget, waiting for Steve to get through all of his nonsense before just handing down the damn edict already. Steve’s probably dragging it out just to be a punk. But Bucky’s not about to say something now. Kale is the fucking worst.

Steve glances at his hands, curls them both loosely into fists. Bucky follows his gaze. He’s always loved Steve’s hands. When they were first doing this before the war, he liked how delicate they were, and he would marvel at how such small hands could deliver so much glorious satisfaction. Back then they had to be pretty inventive—Steve’s hands couldn’t take much before his palms were hurting worse than Bucky’s bare ass cheeks were, and paddles were too loud, risking the neighbors hearing. They did a lot of hair pulling and fingernail digging and Bucky spent a lot of time in awkward, exhausting positions, thigh muscles trembling, biceps cramping. Bucky would get hard just having Steve’s sweet, deft hands guiding him to stand exactly how Steve wanted him. There was a perverse pleasure in Steve’s smallness. They both knew that if Bucky refused to obey, Steve couldn’t physically make him. It couldn’t have been clearer that the power shift between them wasn’t remotely physical. It was purely mental. Bucky obeyed because he wanted to. He was complicit in his own degradation, and knowing it was its own kind of high.

Now, though, Steve’s hands are big and strong, veiny and callused from catching the shield. Now he probably could make Bucky do something despite a refusal. It’s strange how that’s shifted their dynamic. It’s added a hint of delicious fear to Bucky’s side of it. It’s made Steve more careful. What used to be sweet is tense now, and Bucky’s not entirely sure it’s not an improvement.

God, he has too many thoughts. He fucking hates hell week.

He realizes Steve’s watching him, and he drops his gaze, tips his face away. He’s struck by an urge to lash out, to make Steve use those big hands to shove him down. He wants to cry out that he needs help. Help me be less, he wants to shout.

“Easy,” Steve murmurs, stroking Bucky’s hair again. “It’s not as bad as all that.”

“Sorry,” Bucky mutters. “Shouldn’t have smoked.”

“No, you shouldn’t have. But as far as transgressions go, it’s pretty minor.” Steve tugs gently on a lock of hair, sending pleasure coursing through Bucky’s scalp and down his spine. Bucky hesitates, and then exhales all in a rush as he lays his forehead on Steve’s thigh. Steve makes a soft noise of contentment and says, “How about this? Kale for dinner tonight as a punishment for the smoking. Something healthy to replace the unhealthy. Yeah?”

Bucky nods against Steve’s thigh. It’s the kind of punishment he expected, and he supposes he’s lucky it’s just one night’s worth. He can’t help being disappointed that it’s not—that it’s—he wishes he could—he makes a soft noise that sounds pathetic and young and—

Steve tugs once more, interrupting his spiral. “Now go get the cane.”

Bucky yanks his head up. “Yeah?”

Steve rubs his thumb over Bucky’s mouth. “Will it help?”

Bucky feels unaccustomed tears prick at the back of his eyes. He feels stupid about it, but—God, somehow Steve always manages to do this. To make Bucky feel seen and loved. He manages to say, “Yeah, it’ll help.” Then he presses an instinctive kiss to the ball of Steve’s thumb.

“Think you’ll get hard?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Then get the key to your cage, too. Hurry up.”

Bucky gets to his feet and hurries back into the bedroom. There’s lube in pretty much every drawer in their apartment, so he doesn’t bother with that, but he gets the cane and the key out of the safe and a few clean towels, including the one they use just for instances where there might be blood.

When he gets back, Steve unlocks his cage, sliding the plug out of his ass and easing the metal rings away from his cock carefully. Bucky’s cock twitches at Steve’s touch, but Steve ignores it. He points to the couch. “Towel on the armrest, then drape yourself over it.”

Bucky obeys. His left hand is extended along the back of the couch, palm up, careful not to grab anything he might rip. His right grasps the edge of the cushion.

“Legs apart, come on, you know the score. Let me see you.”

Flushing red, Bucky steps his legs wide apart. You’d think he’d be used to this, to Steve looking at his hole and the heavy sway of his balls from this angle, but the humiliation of being exposed like this never fully goes away. But it’s a smart bit of calculation. There is no place on the body more sensitive to a swat from a cane than the exposed rim of the anus. Steve means to make these blows count, and Bucky shivers in anticipation.

“Now to consider how many lashes,” Steve says thoughtfully. He runs a hand over Bucky’s flank, fingers lingering, testing muscle. “What’s your first thought in the morning supposed to be?”

Shit. Bucky licks his lips. “Your cock.”

“What’s your first desire supposed to be?”

“Giving you pleasure.”

“What’s the first thing you’re supposed to do in the morning?”

“Edge for you.”

“Did any of those things happen today?”

“No.” Bucky’s breathing speeds, and he tries to force himself to slow back down. He knows Steve’s going to punish him for all of those transgressions, even if they weren’t, technically, within Bucky’s control. Any other day, it might be fair to expect Bucky to do those things, but a nightmare day—they both know that’s not reasonable. That’s not the point. This isn’t really a punishment. Kale’s a goddamn punishment. They both know Bucky wants this.

From Steve’s perspective, it’s at least as much that beatings like this, with these transgressions in mind, are part of what helps condition Bucky back into the habit after the mess of hell week. Tomorrow, maybe, he’ll wake up sore and marked and his first thought really will be Steve’s cock, Steve’s pleasure. He’ll have to remove his cage so, so carefully to avoid the pain that comes with trying to take it off when his cock is trying to get hard—and it will be, if he wakes up with Steve’s cock in his mind. He’ll edge thinking about making Steve come, about taking Steve in his mouth or his hand or his ass, he’ll get close thinking of Steve using him, controlling him, keeping him horny and ready at all times, just for Steve’s convenience, and then he’ll stop, right at the pinnacle, because Bucky is a thing to be used, not a person who feels pleasure or orgasms, he exists solely for Steve to use—

Yeah, it’s a good thing they took his cage off. Bucky’s hard as rock. He resists the urge to rub against the towel he’s sprawled over. His cock belongs to Steve, and Steve hasn’t given him permission to touch or pleasure himself. Not that Steve would. The only time Bucky’s allowed to touch himself is for edging, and the edging is, at its core, about Steve enjoying Bucky’s frustration.

“I think thirty,” Steve says casually, and Bucky’s heart skips a beat. That’s a lot. With Steve’s considerable strength? That’s a _lot._ He’s not surprised when Steve tucks a towel around his feet. That’s so much more than he thought he’d get, and gratitude and excitement sweep through him.

Steve warms him up first with a few spanks, bare palm to bare cheek, just enough to wake his skin up.

And then he steps back and says, “Breathe.”

Bucky drops his head to the cushion. He inhales. Exhales.

He remembers having mixed feelings about Sundays as a boy. His family was the kind of religious that looked on warily at the Church’s new forays into secular politics but still attended on Sundays and days of obligation. Steve came along sometimes when his mother had work. Bucky’s ma never minded because Steve was a dream: well-behaved, face upturned throughout the sermon, listening attentively. In contrast, Bucky got bored and squirreled around in the pew and pulled Becca’s hair just enough to set her crying because he needed a distraction so bad.

But he liked the parts with the singing. The choir would stand up in their robes and all their voices would ring out together, gorgeous and loud and somehow bigger than the room. His chest would get tight and his throat would close up. It was like he turned shiny and warm inside. He’d look up into the rafters as if he could somehow see whatever magic was happening that made him feel like that. The songs were sung in praise of God, who Bucky normally didn’t really care much about, but in those moments, he believed fervently. Voices crying _hallelujah_ in unison was a profound beauty, and the resulting feeling was powerful and unknowable and unexplainable. It made him small and big at the same time. Made him safe and awed in the face of something majestic.

When the cane lands, with all of Steve’s strength behind it, that’s what he thinks of.

* * *

“It’s over.”

Steve’s voice comes from a long way away, but Bucky cues in immediately. He lifts his head with a neck that feels limp as a noodle, and nuzzles at the hand that cups his cheek.

“You did it,” Steve says, warm and loving, and Bucky exhales, trying to remember that there’s a world outside of the pain and his flesh and his struggle to endure. Steve’s brushing his sweaty hair back from his forehead, leaning over to kiss Bucky’s temple. “That’s it, sweetheart. Let’s get you up.”

Bucky needs the help; his hamstrings are tight as wire after being bent over so long, and he’s shaking. His legs don’t want to hold him, but after a second of leaning against Steve, they get their act together. He leans against Steve anyway, wanting to be close, wanting Steve’s skin all along his, wanting to climb inside him even, which is a funny thought. He laughs to himself a little at how silly it is.

“That good, huh?” Steve asks, sounding fond and amused, and Bucky nods. He feels limp and distant and so very good, sort of the way he remembers feeling after orgasms before the first time Steve told him not to come and he blew his load all over his chest in the next heartbeat only to fucking _grieve_ the pleasure.

His brain might be weird.

He can’t bring himself to mind so much in this minute, though. He’s got Steve holding him up and his whole body’s glowing and his ass could be on literal fire, the way it feels, and he doesn’t care about any of it. It’s so good. He wants to give some of it back to Steve, wants to share how good it is.

“Can I?” he asks. His voice is wobbly. He might be crying still. He’s not sure. He feels drunk. “Can I, Stevie?”

“Can you what?” Steve bends and gets a towel, mops Bucky’s face up.

“Can I make you feel good?”

Steve considers him. “Feeling sweet, Buck?”

“I want you in me,” Bucky mumbles. “Please?”

Steve’s breath shudders out of him. “God, I love you.” He bends and puts the towel on the carpet, then guides Bucky down to lie on his front. He vanishes for a second, but not for too long; right around the time Bucky starts to feel his absence, Steve’s big bare feet come into view again.

“Comfy?” Steve asks. Bucky nods against his wrists, which are pillowed beneath his head.

Steve climbs astride him, sitting on his ass, which manages to both send agony ricocheting through his whole body and drive his hard dick rough into the nap of the towel.

“Christ,” Bucky grits out.

Steve laughs softly, the sadist, and then proceeds to spread something warm and gooey across Bucky’s shoulders.

“That better not be what I think it is,” Bucky mutters, as if he has any power here to do anything but take it if it _is_ Steve’s come. But he’ll be mad if Steve came without letting Bucky be of use in the process.

“It’s oil, you whiner.” Steve sounds like he’s on the verge of laughing again, and then those big, strong hands are sliding over the tense, tight muscles of Bucky’s back. He’s really digging in, and Bucky’s breath puffs out of him. He moans, barely hearing himself, lost again in the sensations in his body. His nerves are caught up in a maelstrom, the pain and pleasure mixing, overwhelming, and a few tears slip out in the confusion. Steve rubs him down for a while, from the nape of his neck along his spine, working the scars around his left scapula more gently, and then easing further down. Each time he shifts his weight, Bucky’s ass aches in new ways, and it’s killing him in the best possible way.

Steve slides to one side eventually, and skips down to Bucky’s thighs, rubbing all the along the tight muscles there too. He goes all the way to Bucky’s feet, digging into the heels with strong thumbs, transforming Bucky into a gooey mess of human on the floor.

Only then does Steve ease Bucky’s legs wide. Bucky shifts obediently, desire pooling inside him, but Steve doesn’t slide his oil-wet fingers into him. Instead, he says, “Hold real still for me, Buck,” and begins to massage Bucky’s ass cheeks.

Steve’s barely touching him, but the pain is _blinding,_ and Bucky coughs a sob into one bent elbow. He doesn’t move even though he wants to writhe, because Steve told him not to, but Jesus Fucking FUCK does that hurt.

Steve chuckles behind him and stops. “You’ll thank me for that in a second.”

“Not fucking likely,” Bucky gasps, and Steve makes a soft humming sound in consideration.

Then he’s kneeling between Bucky’s spread thighs and sliding into Bucky slowly. Even though Bucky was wearing a plug all night as part of his cage, Steve’s careful to give him time to adjust. Steve’s cock is big enough that it’s right on the line of uncomfortable, but Steve refreshed the lube, at least.

When Steve’s pelvis comes to land squarely against Bucky’s cheeks, the weight of all that muscle and flesh is a new kind of torture. He understands, belatedly, what Steve meant when he said Bucky would be grateful for that oil; it’s nothing compared to what he might’ve felt if there was friction added into the whole process, because Steve proceeds to grind against him rather than thrust.

“Holy fuck,” Bucky cries into his elbow. He’s hard enough to hammer nails, and everything hurts, and his face feels hot and tears are leaking, and Steve’s stretching him open so thick and wide, pinning him to the floor like a butterfly is pinned to a board. He can’t move, can’t think, can’t do anything but lay there with his legs spread and burn and crave as Steve slowly takes him apart.

The pressure of Steve’s rolling hips has Bucky’s cock rubbing against the towel, and he grits his teeth. He can’t come. He can’t. He _won’t._ But he also has zero interest in asking Steve to pause in case he gets close, so he tries his best to ignore the sensations turning his belly soft and liquid with pleasure.

“Oh,” Steve gasps, almost inaudible, and abandons all impulses to tease. He gets up on his knees, grabs Bucky by the hips and tugs him back so that he’s on his knees too, hard cock dangling between his thighs. Bucky simultaneously misses the friction against his cock and is grateful to have temptation removed.

Steve begins to thrust. He’s got a good angle on Bucky’s prostate, sending lightning coursing through him, and his big hands shift from Bucky’s hips to his ass. He works his palms over the cane marks in the tender flesh, making Bucky cry out. He struggles not to pull away from Steve’s touch, struggles not to push back onto Steve’s cock, struggles not to come, not to cry. He only has one job here, and that’s to obey, to take it, to give everything he has, to devote every iota of his body and mind and will to making Steve feel good.

Steve’s thrusting hard now, using his fingers to pry Bucky’s cheeks wide, and Bucky knows he’s watching where his cock delves deep into Bucky’s body, and the delicious humiliation of that has his cock dripping. He wants to come, wants it bad, but at the same time, the idea of it is repellant. Coming means this is, at least partially, about him, and it isn’t, it shouldn’t be, he doesn’t _want_ that, so even though his body craves it, he girds himself against it.

Steve comes, going still as he fills Bucky up, cruelly twisting Bucky’s abused flesh as he does so. He stays there, shaking, for a long few seconds before the tension in his body dissipates. He lets Bucky slide slowly off his lap before reaching under to check that Bucky’s still hard and hasn’t come.

“Good boy,” Steve says, sounding exhausted, and Bucky leans against him, pleased with himself.

He has become real.

* * *

After a shower to get all the oil off, Steve rubs medicated cream into Bucky’s cane marks. He looks over his shoulder into the mirror, sees the deep red welts that interlay like the lines of dozens of tic-tac-toe games. The bruising is obscene—black and purple where the welts are at their worst, swollen in between, and Bucky thinks, _yep, that’s what it feels like._

Now that he’s not all turned on, Steve looks a little regretful. “Too much, Buck?”

Bucky shakes his head. He probably would’ve been fine if they’d kept going a while longer, but for the first time maybe ever, he feels satisfied by a beating. It was enough. He feels concrete in his body again, the walls solid around him, the floor beneath his feet steady enough to take his weight. “It was perfect.”

“Sure?”

“I haven’t thought about anything but you since the first lash,” Bucky promises. There’s no hint of the soldier in his head, no sign of the guilt or shame or unreality. He feels—well, he feels fucking terrible, physically, it hurts like a mother. But he also feels good. He feels solid. He feels happy. “Thank you. I know it’s not easy for you.”

“Some parts of it are just fine,” Steve says, smiling. “And on that note, you owe me some edges.”

Bucky groans even as he heads for the bedroom. His cock only just went down, for crying out loud. And here it is, perking up at the idea of edging.

“Put down a towel first,” Steve admonishes as Bucky starts to climb on the bed. “Were you raised in a barn?”

Bucky goes to get yet another towel, laughing under his breath the whole time, cheered to no end by how Steve, a man who throws a frisbee to take out criminals and beats his lover with a cane, can be so pearl-clutching at the idea of mussed sheets. He lays the towel out on the mattress, raises his eyebrows challengingly in Steve’s direction, and then lays down when he gets an eye roll and a nod in response. He takes himself in hand, and does as he should’ve done this morning, as he will do tomorrow morning.

He thinks of Steve, of his cock and his pleasure, and begins to edge.


End file.
